Welcome to the More Room For Joy Podcast with your host Christine Baker Marriage where she offers strategies to overcome life’s hurdles, ways to create a life filled with intentional happiness, and ideas on how to find balance in all of the aspects of your personal, home, and business life. Stay tuned so you too can learn how to design a joyful life.
Hi friends! Welcome to the very first episode of More Room For Joy podcast. Today on the show we are talking about what more room for joy is all about, what control you have over your own happiness – it may be different than what you’re thinking – and we’re going to dive into talking about free workshop I am offering this Thursday. May 14th, so please stick around.
Hi friends! I am so excited to be here! It is unbelievable to me that we are launching this podcast, this is episode one I couldn’t be more excited! I wanted to do this for a very long time and I’m thrilled that we finally get to go for it so welcome I’m so glad you’re here. So today we’re going to talk about what more room for joy is all about, who I am, what I do OK then we’re going to talk about how you can control your own happiness and like I said in the intro it might be different than what you’re thinking. I was surprised when I discovered the information around this, and then later on at the end we’re going to talk about a workshop I am offering about how to generate some progress and let me tell you what in times like this that we are dealing with the pandemic, in quarantine and oh by the way just so you know for future reference we are in I believe week nine of the quarantine and so to give some perspective we’ve all been and away from our family and friends and doing work from home and you know some of us are helping the school district teach our children from home which has been very interesting to learn from that wow wow and so a lot of us are feeling stuck. I know I was and so I fell back on this progress generator that I created like 18 years ago and I’m dying to share with you so we’ll talk about that.
So let’s get right into what More Room For Joy is all about. I’m Christine and I am a life balance strategist. I don’t call myself work/life balance strategist because I did, I’ll admit that, I did for a bit but I don’t now because my philosophy is that there’s three parts of my life: personal, home, and work and I don’t want to just manage work in life because I think life is the bigger picture and it’s made up of work and home and your personal aspects. So your personal aspects would be you know your spirituality or your life goals or things like that where your home is much more of your environment and the people you live with the people that you spend your life with and work doesn’t necessarily have to be I-95 job. It doesn’t have to be a paying job. Work for me when we talk about that category and life balance it means much more about how you contribute to society , what you do to leave your mark , what you do to leave your legacy. So that could be volunteering that could be walking dogs that could be a nine to five job that could be C shift that could be an entrepreneur, solopreneur, a travel blogger. I mean it literally could be anything that you’re doing to help contribute to society so I help you manage all that so that you can be productive and happy and balanced.
So that’s a lot about me so I work with individuals, entrepreneurs and solopreneurs, and small businesses to optimize strategies holistically. So what I mean by that is that I try to optimize everything that’s going on in their lives will get into the philosophy of that in a couple of episodes down the line but for now I try to treat the whole picture I try to work with the whole picture and not just one aspect because it’s all pieces the pie that fit together and in order for it to flow and have fluidity and balance that you need to kind of have a grip on all of these right. All right I am not a mental health professional but I do help people find out their life’s purpose and brainstorm ideas and offer them strategies on how to optimize even with evergreen strategies in their home and their business and optimize your life so it’s a very fun thing to do. I love what I do and I love how it it’s all unfolding and but we’re going to tak more about this in many more episodes.
So why did I create more room for joy? So when I was growing up I wanted to be a doctor, or a teacher, or an architect and of course I want to be all three. I couldn’t decide which one so I wound up being none of them go figure. Life took me on a much different journey which is fine, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I keep going back to those callings if you will and when I was younger I couldn’t figure out the commonality between them you know like I remember a friend of mine wanted to be either in the Marines or a police officer that to me had a common purpose and they really knew what they wanted to do and when I was growing up the only thing that I could come up with were doctor, teacher, and architect or pretty much anything else I would be open to pretty much anything else to do everything. I even talk about that I wrote a book back in the 2017 and I talk about a story about how my God father asked me one day, “So what do you want to be when you grow up?” and I told him everything. I want to be and do everything. So obviously that’s you know, that’s not going to happen because I can’t literally do everything, but I kept going back to those three vocations and what on earth was the common thread between all of them? I discovered that they all dealt with creating or designing a foundation for an individual to live their best life. A doctor obviously create a physiological foundation and well-being right? The teacher creates an educational foundation, and some might even say an emotional foundation and the architect creates literally a physical representation or physical foundation where you can rest, regenerate your energy where you can regenerate your mind, where you can be creative. That’s when I figured that out these foundations are what we all fall back on when times get tough, it is what we build upon when we evolve and it is what we stand upon when we contribute to our lives and our families lives and to society. It’s those foundations though it’s our fall back it early cargo to write and that’s what it is still important to get the foundation right I think and or to learn how to fix it when it becomes unbalanced because when you have a solid foundation you can do anything you can build it in any way shape or form your life you can literally do anything and that’s where more room for joy comes in i’m a life filled strategist and I help clients create strategies to overcome life’s hurdles and to help them find ways to fill their lives with intentional happiness I hope you find balance in all aspects of your life that’s why I’m here to help you design A joyful life and that’s why I started the podcast very exciting I’m beyond excited like I’m sorry but when you see the video you’ll see how happy I am to be here so This is why for the podcast those to connect with you in a different way connect with you in a more face to face way to help you realize that you’re worthy of joy and happiness to remind you that there is hope especially in a pandemic specially acquainting there really is well I promise you remind you that we always have choices and how to live life differently my mother always told me that no matter what we had a choice we always have a choice on how we deal with the situation and how we act in a situation because here’s the thing life happens right life always will continue happening nice that you probably understand that pretty well if you take a step back and really think about the enormity of that statement it’s overwhelming to me overwhelming to think that wife keeps ticking on life time rather keeps ticking along no matter what we want or what we care for or how we want to stop or whatever I will share with you a personal story right now bad wasn’t planning on doing that but why not my first husband passed away when I was 30 just after our fourth child had turned one and it was a surprise I had been sick her whole life our whole marriage and but died very suddenly from infection and I remember waking up the next day and I was doing dishes and I was so angry at the cars passing by and they I remember thinking that they were going to work or going to the grocery store or going to the bowling alley or going to their child’s dance recital or dropping their kids off at school or the Mail mailbox or post office or bank or whatever and I was so angry that was happening ’cause my life felt like it had stopped and the time keeps ticking along whether we wanted to or not and it was a hard lesson to learn but life really doesn’t care if we are in crisis or depressed or stuck in a rut life keeps on walking and if you’re lucky occasionally it’ll turn back and go hey yeah come in or not and we have to be prepared to be able to say yeah I’m coming I’m on my way sometimes I get it that we we have to be still and we have to be quiet and figure things out I think it’s also good to be prepared to just keep on trucking so sometimes I you know especially after my husband passed away i felt like I was chasing I was trying to keep up I was trying to be better do better wanting a better life on a happier life wanting a simpler life I was trying to catch up so I’m sure a lot of you do too you know let me know if you do ’cause we can talk about it certainly so that I come to the conclusion I guess i should say that life happens in two ways it controls the pace with without regard to what we want or need or we can take control back and created a pace that suits us suits us sorry living life to its fullest has always been a goal of mine but I always feel yanked back into the deep seated responsibilities and so it was always hard for me to figure out where the balance was and to figure out happiness is going on with you know I’m supposed to be you know raising all these wonderful people and doing good things and living life and showing them how wonderful life can be but yet you should found abilities were happening and it was mind boggling how overwhelmed and unbalanced I was and and that’s The thing is everyday life can be very overwhelming and unbalanced and sometimes getting through the next day or even the next hour is extraordinarily difficult um I asked to talk with people that have it all together I heard just like like their life is mundane life is typical and there’s no excitement there’s no happiness there’s no life there just moment a lot and they don’t know what is wrong like you know all the boxes are ticked off as far as balance goes they are missing like a secret ingredient their life is flatlined nobody wants that So what is that secret ingredient it’s Troy it is crazy boundless unbridled pure powerful big joy and joyous way different than happiness it’s way different than you know even being excited it is it is this feeling that it’s pure I guess is the only way I can describe it it’s sure happiness happiness is momentary pure happiness and sustained happiness is joy Webster define stroy as the emotion evoked by well being success or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires I want that because it speaks to the well-being side of how I practice and when you are in balance joy naturally comes from everything it worked so hard to do it’s a byproduct of everything that you worked for and everything that you wanted to achieve and it comes naturally and it’s an amazing consequences of all your hard work all your choices and it also has been known to replace not often but not terribly peoples anxiety peoples uncertainty and it makes life just a little bit more worth living and holy God isn’t that an amazing thing there is a study that came out of Berkeley in 2015 that said well scientists determined that our happiness levels are a result of a complex integration of jeans paviors and life circumstances and we how we spend our time in earth in the thoughts that we Mull over and whatever else really impact the amount of long-term joy and happiness that we experienced all that aside we are then responsible for 40 percent 40% of our own joy and happiness I thought the number when I first read the article it was going to be a lot higher closer 200 I guess that there are some factors that will always you know factor in circumstances genetics predisposition to diseases you know illness or depression things like that but 40% people we can do that we can totally you know got this it also makes me realize that not for nothing there’s a lot that goes on in hard lives that asked to contribute for joy that we have no control over so let’s work on the stuff that we do have control over and and magnify it and strengthen it and and build that foundation so that we can hang up big pure joy and not a mundane lifeless joyless life OK seeking out their big joint isn’t mean with her away responsibilities right out the window absolutely not it just means that we contribute to society in a meaningful and productive way we come home and are within our homes and and her contribute to the our home life in a meaningful and memorable and productive way it also means that we evolved to the best person that we can be isn’t that amazing I’m successful byproduct of all our work I think so so Helen Keller once said your success and happiness lies within you resolve to keep happy and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties I love that because um when my husband did die the first thing I did was I shared how grateful I was that wasn’t in pain and in future and future episode I will explain how gratitude um Totally feed him to joy and and while it’s hard and it’s a practice I believe is to practice much like meditation or yoga or or a prayer or anything however you you know deal with things in your life I think it’s a practice and and gratitude certainly helped me put the entire experience into perspective and I was able to feel of course I was heartbroken and devastated but I was able to feel gratitude and that moment and and felt joy that he was no longer in pain no longer suffering it’s not easy and it’s not that and other episodes but i really do believe that we can learn from life trials and I really do believe that we can choose differently to promote our evolution instead of steeped in our stagnation and I wholeheartedly believe that there is always more room for joy and honestly I cannot wait to help you design A life filled with boundless amounts of it 321 for those of you watching the podcast via my YouTube channel there is a beautiful art piece that my sister Susan did right there just a friend of the surface phone and I think she is an incredible artist and even more incredible human she has a great heart and a great message and I’m going to do a shameless plug for her she doesn’t even know that I’m doing this so don’t tell it or teller either one but actually I want to tell her I want to go visit her you can find her at a create art for good network name is Susan Carman Duffy she’s an amazing person And I will include her contact info can website in the show now so please go visit her often she also has a card company credit card company which I’ve utilized many a times during this pandemic it was a wonderful way to still well now that I was thinking about that without going to the store I would call her up and and she gladly hooked me up and saved my but many times she’s awesome so I highly recommend that you go and see her so create are for good.org again I’ll leave it in the show notes and check her out 821 all right before we go I wanted to talk to you about a workshop I’m offering this Thursday maybe 4630 I believe it’s a zoom called alive zone call and it’s a workshop about the progress generator that I created 18 years ago when I was a single mom with four kids and needed to see progress needed to not have the same thing like Groundhog Day day in and day out I needed to create sizeable chunks a progress in my day that i felt good about that were manageable and I did feel guilty about if I didn’t you know like cell world hunger and one day you know I’m heated needed something that would benefit my anxiety um or ease my anxiety i should say and also provide a way for me to feel successful and productive in crisis I’m bringing this back now because even though we are slowly moving into opening up the world again as we’re moving through this pandemic we’re still in crisis this isn’t listen unprecedented time and it’s unusual and there so many emotions going on blocking our minds down it really is our back better minds are shut down and understandably this is hard stuff i’m not going to discount that whatsoever so with That being said this this workshop is not about being productive or and sort of process user and find out it’s about falling back on your foundation about falling back on things that you know to be true and getting things done that you feel good about so you can feel success so you you conception guilty start feeling like you somehow film could you have a you are doing amazing things and it’s OK to not know how to deal with this OK none of us do alright it’s a free workshop it’s going to be about an hour I’m going to try to keep a little bit less than an hour but as you can tell I can kind of ramble sorry it’s you know we still have to function as a an individual and is personally contributed to home and to work right we still have to live we sell to move forward so I’m going to show you how to do that in bite size chunks you can register on my website more room for joy.com and also you can find the registration page event I think it is actually on Facebook and if you want to follow me on all of the fun a social media stuff it’s all more room for joy that come it is free and if you were listening to his podcast after after May 14th I’m going to put up the workshop as a downloadable course after May 25th so after May 25th it will be a downloadable course and what you get in the course on May 14th and May 25th is uh my free ebook that I wrote very small but it it gives you an example of the the purpose the purpose generator the and then you know how to use it to advantage so so include that in the course too I hope you can join me and you know we look forward to helping now this was so much fun you guys I am so excited to have been able to be here this is really cool I think I think we’re going to we’re going to become friends we’re going to we’re going to experience a lot of interesting fun things together and I can’t wait to be with you on this journey so that is all for today thank you for listening I hope you have enjoyed today’s episode first episode of more words for joy podcast you certainly has made my day by being here with me you can catch the full video and audio of this podcast channel please like subscribe comment things that they tell you to do every other one and I hope you can join us again next Tuesday where we’re going to talk about is lifebelts even really possible there’s two answers to that I’m going to give you both of them next week OK make sure you subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or Spotify so you never miss an episode For more information or to check out future episodes or cats blogs or a feeling that you can visit more room for joy dekada block for you to do that you’ll also find events there that I’m having or my book my focus also there or other services that I offered I if I can help in anyway please let me know I would love to be there for you and help you to create more room for joy don’t hesitate ask and I’m around alright I’m so excited that you’re here have a great night and I’ll talk to you soon alright be well my friend thank you.
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